Dynavector DRT XV-1 &
head amp

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This is the second
Dynavector review, and like the last time I'll not give a price in
deference to the manufacturers wishes. But in this case it's more "if
you need to ask you can't afford it" territory. Here we're well
into four figures (pounds sterling) and into the stratosphere where
only a handful of manufacturers try to wrest the last few shekels
from audiophiles with deep pockets. The XV-1 is a hand built exotic
from a manufacturer better known for pushing down the price of moving
coils (MC's) - it is Dynavectors "Statement Product".

Technical

For
the details go to Dynavector's
website, but to give the basics it's a low output moving coil
cartridge. 0.3 mV is plenty for most MC stages and so the cartridge
should be widely compatible.The line-contact stylus sits at the
end of a solid boron cantilever. The magnetic circuit is
unconventional to say the least, but again for details see
Dynavectors website.The unconventional design is in part
responsible for the cartridges appearance. This is one of those open
bodied designs, though in this case much of the "works" are
encased in a block of clear red resin.This brings us to my first
moan about the XV-1. Here we have a hideously expensive device that
is just crying out to be wreaked... The cantilever juts out in front
of the body, bare wires run along the outside and there is no
stylus guard...I pride myself on having steady hands but I
heaved a sigh of relief when at the end of the review the thing was
back in its box in one piece.My SME IV
was a great comfort here as all I needed to do was bolt up the
cartridge, the cartridge body is threaded thank God, then all the
adjustment took place at the other end...A more conventional
tonearm with a slotted headshell for alignment and one of those "undo
the bolt and pray it doesn't crash to the ground" VTA
adjustments would have left me ready for the cardiac ward.Ah yes
- the tonearm. You need a very good one, that should be self evident,
but it also needs to be able to cope with the XV-1's weight and size.
At 13.5 grms and big with it, the DRT is no sylph, its also unusually
tall so all this needs to be taken into account. The SME proved
ideal, I'd guess quite a few arms, especially low mass jobs, would be
in trouble...

All that done I set
the downforce and bias at the recommended 2 grms and ran my test
record. With this I got an arm cartridge resonance of 9-10 Hz, quite
low for a MC and a reflection of its weight as much as its
compliance, though this caused absolutely no problems and there was
no need for damping. Tracking as with most MC's was good without
being spectacular, It cleared the 300Hz tone at 12 and 14 dB, buzzed
slightly on the 300Hz test and lost the plot completely at 18dB.
However during the month I had with the cartridge not once did it let
go with music, from Nirvana to Billy Holliday from Verdi to Handel,
which just goes to show - ho hum....

Sound

Before I start here's
a quote from the email the president of Dynavector, Dr Tominari, sent
me as he put the XV-1 in the post...

"This combination
is so good out of my expectation that I spent my winter holiday
listening only to old LPs by great artists of 1950 to 1970. The sound
by this combination is absolutely another sound from all other phono
cartridges including our products in the past. When you test, I would
like to ask you for using old monaural LPs as well as normal stereo
recording, and comparing the sound played-back from LP and CD using
the same sources."

How refreshing that
after making cartridges for 20 years a man can get genuinely excited
about his latest "baby", I know hi-fi designers who don't
actually listen to music, Mr Tominari is obviously of the "can't
wait to get it home" variety:-)

In due deference to Mr
Tominari The first slab of vinyl on the my Orb was Nina Simone's "My
Baby Just Cares for Me" from 1958. This is a mono recording, but
I, and a friend who dropped in couldn't believe it.The image was
huge and solid, it even had a hint of depth (no I can't explain).
There was no "left-right" spread of different instruments,
just a coherent whole, spread six foot wide in the centre.It made
me see what the "flat earth" mono lovers are talking about,
if mono is this good who needs stereo? OK so I'm pushing a point
here, but I could live happily with the result... Nina Simone was
just 25 when this recording was made and she had no right to a voice
with such depth and emotion. "Smokey" comes to mind but
there was more to it than that, a sense of effortlessness and power
under the surface. The piano sounded suitable "big", during
the solo the keys hitting the stops could easily be heard.

There followed a long
session, concentrating on female vocal. The XV-1 was so warm and
natural it flattered and seduced, it even made Nancy Griffiths
listenable. Ricky Lee Jones coo'd and simpered, laughed and snarled,
her first (wonderful) album showing the XV-1's prowess in imaging,
detail retrieval and of course Jones's love affair with snappy
bass.During this an astonishing thing happened. Just for a
fleeting instant a head was singing. I'm not talking the usual
"holographic" imaging beloved of hi-fi writers, but an
actual human head, solid and decapitated, two feet in front of the
speakers... Then it was gone. A couple of tracks later there it was
again - then gone... It was eery and left me quite shaken, nothing
like this has happened before.My system, and perhaps more
importantly, room isn't really set up for image freaks but there was
something magical here. Try as I might I couldn't repeat the
exercise, it was transient.Here was a capability that my system
just hinted at. I've heard several cartridges, and systems for that
matter, throw etherial images on a big sound-stage. This sort of
imaging, beloved of many, leaves me cold, I've never heard such
whispy, hazy images in real life. The XV-1 places solid realistic
images in a big bold soundstage.

Later I put on the
blazing, raw grunge of Nirvana. I was greated with the bass power of
the Shure V15 but with a frightening
realism elsewhere. Dire Straits' "MTV" provided further
proof of the DV-1's dynamic abilities the drum/keyboard crescendo at
the end of the intro was massive with the soundstage staying
absolutely rock solid as the transients crashed out rather than
collapsing to the centre as so often happens.Here the single
biggest difference between the XV-1and lesser cartridges was that the
more complex, more 'wall or sound' or more massive the sound the
bigger the lead. Whereas things become a bit compressed and blurred
with the Dynavector 20/V15/Ortofon Supreme etc, it seems as if the
XV-1 just shifts up a gear and takes everything that's thrown at it
with something bordering on contempt.It has a rock like solidity
and made every other cartridge I had to hand sound forced and
artificial in comparison. Perhaps it was this composure with every
kind of music and every disc, no matter what, that I will remember
from the test cartridge.

This performance
worked right across the disc, end of side distortion being heard on
only very worn records, and here other cartridges faired worse.
Surface noise, already low on my system, became insignificant on all
but the most abused discs. This ability to make the most of second
hand recordings does offset the price somewhat as the "car boot
sale" purchases produce real fidelity.

Conclusion

At one and the same
time this has been one of the most sublime and frustrating items I
have ever had in my system. My own system has a warm balance which I
counter with a bright cartridge, the slightly warm DRT rather overdid
things at times (not the DV-1's fault), but there was no doubt at any
time that my system was barely scratching at the surface of the
DV-1's capabilities. My front end of Orb/SME
IV was certainly up to the job as were my Audion
valve amps (I had another hi-end job on test at the time to
compare with), speakers? the IPL
S3MTL's though good were too warm, the Cabasse
Sloops a better balance, but I found myself cursing a room that
crippled the last degree of imaging.To get the best from such a
set-up you need a divorce, lose the kids and start structural
modifications to produce the perfect listening room. In my case the
arrival of a big red velvet curtain and speakers half way up the room
nearly produced the desired effect (divorce etc), but in the end I
decided to stop trying to force the issue and listen to what the
cartridge could do in my flawed environment...

One other serious
drawback for me was the way it matched with CD. My own player is a
Micromega Solo, hardly entry level, yet it sounded thin, weak and
harsh in comparison. The huge solid soundstage left the Solo sounding
very much like hi-fi rather than music. During the test period of one
month I doubt if I listened to more than half a dozen Cd's.If you
run a two-source system you're going to find it very, very difficult
to find a CD player that will match the powerful natural bass, the
lack of distortion, the 'you are there' imaging and the detailed
sound that the DV-1 produces. In this I fear the DV-1 requires
commitment to a vinyl front end, leaving the CD for "background
music" or for those moments when too much wine means risking
wiping over a grands worth of diamond off a sliver of Boron...

Here's just a small
example of what I mean... At the moment I am blundering around trying
to make a cheap hi-efficiency speaker for TNT readers with shallow
pockets and low powered valve amps. I've just put together a 45 lt.
ported box with an Audax "full-range" unit in it.Wiring
this to my CD player produced the sort of sound that makes you want
to put lead in your ears. I'd given up on the project altogether but
as an afterthought I tried it using the Dynavector. Now putting five
grands worth of front end through a three grand amp and on to a pair
of bodged speakers with a 22 pound driver in each might not seem the
most sensible thing in the world, but the result was music.OK the
speakers were still dreadful, but the lack of any distortion from the
Dynavector made them produce sounds that made me decide to carry on
the experiment (watch this space...).After this experience I
desperately tried to get hold of a pair of quality "full-range"
drivers so that I could answer the question that was beginning to
form in my head" is this THE cartridge for Lowther users?..."
- that smooth, meaty balance and lack of distortion must be tailor
made, no speaker could be too revealing... I failed, but something
tells me that well heeled Lowther (or similar speaker) users might
find this the answer to their prayers... Likewise those who bemoan
the demise of Linn's Troika, finding it's replacement the Arkiv too
gutless, may be beating a path to Dynavectors door.

For the rest of us
(providing we have the cash) the DV-1 offers a warm, powerful,
detailed and totally unflappable cartridge. It got me closer to the
live event than any cartridge or CD player I've heard. Here it will
be sorely missed and probably never affordable, if you have the cash
I envy you.

And
to rub salt into the wound, there's a matching head-amp!

The DV-PHA-100 is
Dynavectors answer to getting the output of the DV-1 up to a standard
MM input as found on most valve stages. Once again the theory of the
device is on the Dynavector site, but as with the DV-1 it's an
unconventional device as it relies on amplifying the current produced
by the cartridge rather than the voltage. The reason according to
Dynavector is that this reduces magnetic distorion in MC's.

Built in a classy
brushed alloy box with an outboard power supply the result was as
you'd expect - superb. The combination stripped a little of the
warmth from the DV-1 and left the signal from the cartridge
unsullied.My Audion pre has quite a sensitive phono stage for a
valve amp allowing reasonable volume without a step-up. So I had the
chance to try the DV-1 direct into the pre, through my own Audion
step-up transformer and finally through the DV-PHA-100. Direct was
excellent but obviously volume was limited, an inadvertent switch to
CD input could prove disastrous.The step-up transformer provided
the gain and a slight warming of the sound, though it has to be said
that it was excellent all round. The Dynavector head-amp produced, as
I said, a slightly more open and less warm view of events. To be
honest I could happily live with either (both are expensive...)
though with the DV-1 the Dynavector stage won by a nose.

Conclusions

If you're going to
shell out for the DV-1 and need a step-up then the Dynavector stage
has to be the first port of call...

Manufacturer's comment

Thank you so much of
for your mail. It is my great pleasure to know that XV-1 was so
highly appreciated by your careful test listening.After reading
the draft, I found your impression of XV-1 is just coincident to what
I have experienced.All valuable master works by famous artists in
the history except the historical musicians achievement recorded on
records in the past are being carefully preserved in museums or
so.It is very sad to see the great works recorded on LPs are
regarded as obsolete and ignored by modern audio people who are
always declaring to pursuit the sound of next generation (Sony,
Pioneer, Philips, Panasonic, JVC etc. )

However they never
mind the situation that they were not able to recover the music from
records even by their so-called HiFi.At the moment majority of
music loving audio users are now beginning to give up their desire to
enjoy music through HiFi regardless of low or high end.This was
the main reason of my development of SuperStereo. After SuperStereo,
somewhat compressed image reproduced by phono cartridges or thin,
weak and dusty sound of CD was my hint to develop new cartridge. This
is mentioned in your draft.Dr. N. Tominari -- Dynavector
Japan - President